Edelweiss! Salzburg

The A&T hostel in Vienna was a very nice place; new, clean and with very friendly staff. The only issue was that the cleaners were very persistent about entering my room, way before the allotted 10am to 2pm slot, and I had to tell 4 different women to go away before I was ready to leave. I don't think so many women have seen me in my underwear in such a short space of time before, but it was all very sexy, trust me.

Due to some very enthusiastic recommendations, I made my way to Schönbrunn, via the train station to lock up my luggage, to visit the palace there. Built by the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (not all by herself), the 1441-room palace is so exuberant and vast in size, it would have taken many hours to experience it all. All I really wanted to do was check out the gardens, but it was utter pandemonium there and the ticket office was like a disorganised cattle market, only with less shit on the floor. The ticket purchasing system seemed overly complicated for most, with several different combinations of attraction passes on offer, and each person spent a good 5 minutes at the ticket machines trying to work out what they wanted. After 20 minutes of queuing, having hardly moved at all, I decided to knock it on the head as I was hoping to get to Salzburg early enough to at least see some of it during the daytime.

The journey through Austria by train is a very pleasant one. It's the stuff postcards are made of. Chalets scatter the incredibly lush countryside, either collected together in little villages or standing all alone and proud in the middle of nowhere. I imagined some bearded lederhosen-wearing Austrian father deciding that that spot was the perfect place for his family's home and just built it, free of planning permission applications, civic ordinance or a care in the world, and I liked that.

Salzburg nestles beautifully within the Alps, and is definitely the most scenic city I've visited so far. I thought my blisters were easing, but the walk to the hostel, due to the public transport being jammed up by some tie-dyed hippie-led protest in the city centre, enraged them further. The hostel is a lot further from the centre than they'd have you believe, and I was in a bit of a sweaty bad mood by the time I got there.

It was later than I was hoping for by the time I was ready to head out again, and I knew I wasn't going to get to see anything cultural when I got back into the city. I certainly wasn't up for the walk again. Thankfully the hostel rented bikes, and I hopped on one of them to make it back to the centre of town. It was the best decision I'd made all day, because it gave my feet a rest and also got me into town within 10 minutes.

I made my way to one of the cafes by the river to get drink, enjoy the scenery and get some much needed people-watching time in. Heading down the cycle path, some dozy bint stepped right into it without looking, causing me to break suddenly. She shrieked unlady-like and shouted "achtung!" at me. I thought "you bloody achtung!"

A drink by the river

I had some amazing food at a nice decked-out garden bar called Zirkelwirt; smoked pork with white bread dumplings in broth and a side sauerkraut with bacon and chives that was swimming in oil. Pretty epic. They had a very nice beer called Kaltenhausen, and I had a few of them while I watched the world go by. Its a phrase I've used again and again in this blog, and I'm not sure if it's just one of the exclusive perks of being an Englishman, but there is a wonderful amount of pleasure to be had in just 'being'. The comedian Mickey Flanagan talks about the joys of doing fuck all (not 'nothing', but actually 'fuck all'), and sitting alone with a pint just staring at existence is the next step on from that.

One thing that's almost as good as just 'being' is cycling through a European city in the summer at sunset. Much cooler than during the day but still pleasant, I actually thought for a brief second "I could happily do this for the rest of my life". I got a little lost through the winding old town streets, but that was ok because I was just having too much fun. Eventually I found my way back, but I suppose nothing good lasts forever.

All things considered, I've been pretty lucky with my hostels. Until now. I don't know in which hostel they took the photos they used on their hostelworld webpage, but it definitely wasn't this one. Looking like a communist leisure centre/ministry, there is nothing welcoming about the Muffin (?) Hostel, and the lengthy check-in process felt more like applying for a soviet block visa than anything else. Only accepting cash is getting rarer in hostels, and, if you do only accept cash, make sure you're near a cash machine or actually have plenty of change when people do give you cash. Alternatively, don't make every price require stupid amounts of change - round those prices off! Also, I've never had to mess about with my internet proxy server settings to get on to WiFi before, but apparently that's just the done thing here. Even after following the stupidly complicated instructions it didn't work, and the lobby is full of people desperately trying to get online.

At least the hostel has a bar, which they proudly advertise on the hostelworld website. What they don't tell you is that it doesn't open until 10pm, and it resembles the most desperately pathetic working mens club you've ever seen. There are hundreds of miniature bottles of something called 'Klopfer' pressed into the polystyrene ceiling tiles as if many a crazy party night has happened here before, but the lack of any other booze behind the bar apart from warm cans of beer and one lone bottle of Bombay Sapphire suggests that's never been the case. They hadn't switched on the oldskool DJ traffic lights by the time I'd left though, so it could've all kicked off later. But I doubt that.

Party central

A very long day in Vienna

Discovering Vienna on foot is a very nice experience, but it comes at a cost; mega mega blisters. I had to chuck my old shoes out as they were just about to fall to pieces, and my new ones have very nearly destroyed me. I am 5 minutes away from just cutting my legs off, and anymore sightseeing, at least for the next few days, I think will be done exclusively via open-top bus.

Priscila (did I mention she is very lovely?) recommended that I explore the centre by walking, so really it's her fault. The Austrians go all out for the Roman classical style architecture, and its Imperically disconcerting but incredibly beautiful all the same. You don't have to plan your route all that intricately to happen upon the Burggarten, Volksgarten, Rathaus Park and Sigmund Freud park, along with all the stunning museum buildings and the Austrian parliament, in one extremely pleasant stroll. For a city in which he only lived for 2 years, Vienna goes a little overboard with their Mozart connection, and every street in the city centre has a 'Simply Mozart' souvenir shop on it. It makes me very curious about how crazy Salzburg will be with him.

The national library. Or uni. I dunno.

The parliament building

Dude punching a horse

There's currently a film festival running in the evenings outside the city hall, and throughout the day the world food stalls and beer tents continue to operate. It was a lovely place to sit for a while taking in the setting, and, more importantly, some beer, while listening to the local radio station play British hit after British hit. I didn't realise Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz was even a thing outside the UK anymore. Then I walked up to the Votivkirche church, which unfortunately is under major renovation work, so there isn't much to see inside apart from a load of sweaty shirtless workmen hammering and slinging scaffolding about. I don't know how people managed to pray with that going on.

Heading back into the centre of town, I walked through what appeared to be the main shopping district to the Stephansdom. The strange thing about the cathedral is that it is a lot less ornate than the first church I visited, lacking the intricate stained glass windows and surrounding murals of the Votivkirche. Along from there, the buildings and statues of the Hofburg, the former imperial residence, continue the classically violent theme, with many depictions of heroic beatings, courageous slayings and general historical shit-kickings.

Stephansdom

Brave.

I jumped on the U-Bahn to Prater, which is the location of the world-famous Ferris wheel and surrounding gypo-like fairground. It would have been a right laugh with some mates, in an ironic way, but I just felt a little bit of a weirdo wandering round a fairground by myself, like some pervy Scooby Doo villain. I went on the Ferris wheel though, purely because it was the setting of one of the most iconic scenes, and speeches, in movie history; Orson Welles explaining his logic behind his penicillin racket to Joseph Cotten in The Third Man. Watch it now. WATCH IT, I SAID!

or if you can't see it, click here

I got back on the U-bahn and headed to Alte Danau: the Old Danube. The canal is famous for its purity and, on a day like today, filled with peddleboaters and swimmers. I felt like finding a shop to buy some trunks and a towel, because the urge to jump right in was almost overwhelming. Instead I sat alongside it for a couple of beers and some pretty good schnitzel, and tried my very hardest not to stare at every bikini-clad girl that walked past. I need to buy the inventor of sunglasses a drink.

Back at the hostel, I watched the first half of Bayern Munich vs Barca, then went for a shower. I thought I'd end up going out to see more of Vienna in the evening, but, after my massive trek today, I just went to the hostel bar again. It involved a lot less walking. I chatted to Priscila and the hostel owner's daughter for a good while, then ended up talking to a very nice couple, James and Lily, from London, and shared a few stories from our respective trips.

After a while Lily went to bed, and James stayed for another drink. A group of young Russian lads came in and generally made nuisances of themselves; they were loud, boorish, obnoxious, and when they started pissing about in the women's toilets, Priscila went to kick them out. James and I went with her as backup, but there was really no need; she well told them where to go. She marched after them down the corridor shouting, and for one minute I thought she was going to get in the lift with them so she could shout some more. What a girl.

I am still alive!

Turns out they've never heard of wifi in Salzburg, but I will post something substantial when I get to Munich, in a proper country.

Budapest to Vienna

I wasn't hungover when I woke up, but I was definitely not 100%. I don't recommend staying out until dawn when you have to checkout at half 10 the next day. I decided to at least try to find the ruin pubs, even if I didn't get to go on the pub crawl. While I was searching for them, I stumbled across a little street market, selling the general tourist crap that's found everywhere in Budapest, but which had a funky little beer shack and it was nice sitting in the sun listening to the chillout house music they were playing through their sound system. I was sure the ruin pubs were just round the corner from there but it took quite a while to find them, because, as I slowly realised, the street names on my map were different to the actual road signs for some mental reason. I ended up walking around in circles like a dick for a while.

It's a bit cheeky to still advertise the ruin pub area as an attraction, as it's clear that most of the area has been redeveloped in recent years, and I very much doubt the remaining places will exist in a couple more. I did find a nice beach-type bar, which reminded me a lot of Yaam in Berlin, where I had a drink and some lunch. BBQ beef and potato salad - nice.

I picked up my bag and jumped in a cab to take me to the station. My taxi driver wasn't anywhere near as crazy as the other I had, but spoke a lot less English. We managed to cobble something together though and, through some shouting, thumbs-up motions, chest pounding and other passionate gestures, I got the impression his favourite Premier League team is West Brom because of the Hungarian player Zoltan Gera, even though I think he's just been released by them.

It's nice to be back in a German-speaking country, where I feel a bit more comfortable talking to people. I got to Vienna at around 6 and headed straight for my hostel. After a much needed shower I went down to the hostel bar as, with an entire day in Vienna to follow, I'd decided to just relax indoors for a while, do some writing and get an early night. I got chatting to Priscila, the very lovely Spanish barmaid, then sat through the mad rush of happy hour; it was easier to do that than fight my way out of the bar, honest. I was just about to finally go once happy hour cleared out when I got talking to a couple of Danish guys. I didn't end up leaving until the bar shut at 2. I had my 4 bed dorm room all to myself, which was awesome.

Budapest drama

Talking of tips, here's one that's worked 3 times out of 3 for me; if you are in a European country that doesn't use the euro and you're not sure about the conversion rate, go to a kiosk at a train station and look at how much a bottle of coke costs - that cost tends to equal around one Euro. In the Czech Republic, a coke was 23 Kc, and the conversion rate is around 24:1. About 5 Polish Zlotys is equal to a euro, which is what a coke cost in the station. It's 300 florints for a coke in Hungary, and you get about 330 to the Euro. I'm not saying it's full-proof and works for everywhere, just that it's been a good barometer for me on this trip. Tell your mates.

It's been 32 degrees in Budapest. Hot. The station into which all the international trains come isn't anywhere near the centre, and, not seeing any clear public transport links, I decided to jump in a taxi and try not to worry about the cost. The cost was the least of my problems, as the driver was an absolute nutter who slung his cab in and out of the tightest gaps and almost-gaps through the traffic of lunchtime Budapest. He took great joy in pointing out 3 different Ferrari's to me which I was very grateful for, but would have been more grateful for a guarantee that I wasn't going to die. I should have been worrying about the cost after all it turns out, as it was £20 for the arse-squeaking privilege.

After sorting out my stuff at the hostel, I walked over the Margaret Bridge to the Buda side of the city and took what felt like a million steps in the heat up to Buda castle. Its a nice place to be, with some beautiful architecture and a fantastic view over the city, and I think I unintentionally but successfully photobombed about a thousand different tourist snaps. I also got to see changing of the guard at the Presidential Palace, which is nowhere near as grand and massively pompous as our own, but equally as rifle-spinningly silly to watch.

The parliament building

At the castle

Jesus on his horse. Or someone, at least

My tour of some of the other landmarks wasn't so successful. I walked back to the Pest side of town over the Szechenyi bridge and up to the cathedral, but it was closed for a concert. Heading north, I made my way to the parliament building, which is totally cut off while they're doing major renovation work to the surrounding grounds. I mentioned in my last post about how it's a small world...well sometimes it's too small; at Katowice, waiting for my train to Bratislava, there was some hippie div on the platform playing with one of those diabolo things. I've just seen the same arse pissing about with it on the lawn outside the American embassy here. Maybe they'll shoot him.

Strictly for arseholes.

There was a pub crawl setting off from my hostel of the ruin pubs, which are a bit of a social landmark, and I thought it would be a good way to see something I had been recommended and also to meet some people. Unfortunately the girl at reception told me the wrong start time and I missed the set off by 15 minutes. I was absolutely gutted, as, having kept myself to myself in Bratislava, I was really up for some human interaction. I went for a bad-tempered walk instead, hoping to at least see the ruin pubs, but I realised after a little while that they were a hell of a long way away, and I felt a bit pathetic walking around on my own. I bought some cans of beer (much less pathetic) and headed back to the hostel.

Sunset on the Danube

When I got there at around half 10, everyone who hadn't gone on the pub crawl was sitting round playing drinking games and having a whale of a time. For fucks sake! I'd missed out on the pub crawl and now I was the outsider here too. I sat in my dorm room seething for about 10 minutes, until NO! I thought, I'm not going to be intimidated by 12 strangers, I'm going out there and muscling my way in! I didn't stride up to them as powerfully as I would've liked, and my 'hello' to everyone was a little sheepish, but at least I'd asserted myself. 3 hours later I was at a rooftop bar listening to repetitive trance music.

The club. Sponsored by Spar, weirdly.

I didn't get to talk to everyone in the group, but everyone I did chat to was awesome. There was Alastair and Rebecca, a couple from Scotland; Matt the Canadian, who said 'eh' a lot; Max the Arsenal fan from North Carolina, but we won't hold either against him, and a group of student lasses from Sheffield. Obviously I refused to tell the girls my age, but the general consensus between them was that I was 23, tops. I shall marry each and every one of them.

Once the rooftop bar kicked out, we managed to find a bar with no roof at all. They definitely play weird music in bars and clubs in Europe, and on this occasion Perfect Day by Lou Reed didn't really set a party mood, but it was still great fun. A lot of chatting later, it was time to leave there too and we made it back to the hostel just as the sun came up. A disastrous night averted.

A cack evening in Bratislava

I didn't end up seeing much of Bratislava yesterday. I had a bit of a snooze when I got to the hostel and then made the massive mistake of deciding to wash my clothes. I'd booked the Freddie Next to Mercury Hostel (don't ask me why it's called that) because reviews online said it was new, clean and, most important to me at the time, had a laundry. What it had in actual fact was one crappy old top-loading washing machine with no instructions that didn't tumble dry. I tried to work out the symbols as best I could, then, expecting the cycle to take about an hour and a half, wandered through the presidential palace park to the Old Town. I thought I'd have plenty of time later in the evening to explore more of the Slovakian places, so popped into an Irish bar to watch a bit of the cricket with a load of Yorkshiremen before heading back to sort my washing out.

When I checked my clothes I found that the machine had wet some of them a bit and then dumped undiluted washing liquid on top, so that stuff was lovely and slimy. There were quite a few people in the hostel living area by that time, so I asked one of the guys if they knew what to do and apparently he'd worked it out the day before through trial and error. I started the machine again and decided to wait around until it finished to make sure it had actually worked this time. I could have tried chatting to the people in the living area, who were all separate travelling groups but had joined up into a big gang at the hostel, but I was still so unbelievably knackered and probably incapable of holding any kind of normal conversation that I just sat in the corner, writing and trying to ignore the utterly shite music they had blaring. To be honest, I don't think I would have got on with them anyway as they were all a bit excitable, and I didn't mind being that one weirdo who creeps everyone out for the evening. More so than normal.

The clothes came out washed, but drenched. The spin cycle seemed to max out at around 1 RPM, and I had to wring everything out in the sink before hanging them up. By the time I was done, it was gone 10 and I had to rush back to the Old Town to find some food. The centre of Bratislava doesn't seem like it's the place to be of an evening, and some places were already shutting up at that time. I found a place called Slovak House that did traditional food, and a particularly surly waiter brought me beef goulash with white bread dumplings. It was pretty bloody awesome. It was then I realised that the hostel gang were sat behind me at the Turkish hookah place next door, and there I was, eating dinner by myself like a loner before murdering them all in their sleep. The waiter brought my bill without me actually asking for it, so I took that as a cue to leave, and I headed back to the hostel.

The presidential palace at night

Not sure what's going on here, but I
definitely didn't have the roast pork

My clothes still weren't dry this morning, but I had a bit of time before having to catch my train, so I took them out to the roof patio, while everyone else was still asleep, and lay them out in the sun for an hour while I organised the rest of the stuff in my bag. I have most definitely learned a lesson there; wash clothes in hostels with more organised and modern facilities. That's going to be a top tip in my guide "Stating the Bleedin' Obvious for Backpackers".

Springfield. Or Leopoldov

Not everyone at Auschwitz was a dick. I met a very nice family from Canada at Oswiecim train station on the way to the camp, who ended up with the same tour guide as me and with whom I took the train back to Krakow afterwards. The local trains in that area of Poland are utter crap and worryingly ancient. With no apparent suspension and axle bearings made out of rocks, the trains jerk, judder and jump over every imperfection in the tracks and go painfully slow. What would be a 30 minute trip on a train back home was over 2 hours, and each of the 3 trains I caught were well over 15 minutes late getting to their destinations on top of that. Admittedly, some trains at home are pretty horrible, but most date from within the last 50 years at least and I'm not in constant fear that they're going to leave the tracks at any moment.

The train to Katowice, from where I was getting the overnight train to Bratislava, was horrendous. It was disgustingly hot and I sweated profusely throughout. It was rammed with backpackers and crawled through the countryside at a pace not even sufficient enough to get a good breeze through the windows. The overnight train wasn't much better, on which I shared a cabin with 5 drunk Dutch guys who proceeded to have a party in the corridor for most of the night. I had about 3 hours sleep.

I got to Bratislava at around half 5 in the morning. There really is nothing to do at that time here and, as I wasn't staying the night, I didn't have a hostel where I could at least sit until there was. I also felt pretty disgusting, having not been able to shower since the morning before, so tried to clean up as well as possible in the train station toilets. I know, yuck.

I wandered the Old Town for a few hours, which I assumed would be a lovely place to be once things opened, until it was time to get the train to Leopoldov, where I was staying with my friend Miriam and her family. The train was pretty swish and air conditioned, which was such a blessing after all the crap ones I'd been on in the last few days, and I even managed to grab a little snooze on the way. Miriam met me at the station. Eventually.

Leopoldov is a village of about 4000 people. Miriam took me on a bit of a walking tour through the town and the surrounding countryside to show me the sights; there's the nuclear power station about 20km away, the artificial lake which was once a gravel mine and now contains a dead horse and the maximum security prison for Slovakia's most extreme criminals. Go, it's really lovely.

We had a BBQ when we got back to the house, where her parents plied me with food and booze. I keep thinking about the smoked sausage wrapped in bacon they served and I want to cry. Neither of them or their friends that came speak English, which was a nice relief as I didn't have to pretend to be interesting for a few hours, and it was fun to just listen to the pattern of their conversation. After a shower, which I really didn't want to get out of, we headed to the local bar (a shack) to meet some of Miriam's friends and her brother. I don't quite know why we were drinking straight rum, but when two quadruples of that, a quadruple vodka and a beer costs 4 euros, you tend not to question things. It was much easier to talk to people there as everyone's English was pretty good, and I even got chatting to some people outside of Miriam's friendship circle; one guy, Michal, knew Slough because he used to visit his ex-girlfriend in Egham, 10 miles from home, when she was at university. Not something you expect to hear in a Slovakian village of 4000 people. It's a very small world.

Miriam's brother, Roman, and I headed home when the bar kicked out at God-knows-what-time; I'd been up for about 22 hours and desperately needed sleep. Miriam stayed out until 7am, drinking in a field. Classy girl. We sat outside in the morning chatting, recovering and eating watermelon. Hungarian watermelon, because apparently their climate is better for it. I put it off for as long as possible, as I didn't really want to go, but I had to man up and get the train back to Bratislava, so Miriam and I left a little earlier to take a leisurely stroll to the station in the sun. I'm sure she cried after I left.